I'm a crackpot blogger - no doubt about it - so when someone like Elizabeth Scalia goes out of her way to invite me to respond to something, well shucks! I'll do it. (I did, but found out I was just in her email c.c. list. Here is my original response.)

Why do I remain Catholic?

Easy answer: I fell in love with Jesus.

Who first loved me.

(I've pretty much told this story before - so I'll try my hand at being a bit more poetic in this narrative.)

I really, truly encountered him in the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament.

I was led by the Holy Spirit - literally grasped by him - and swept up into the confessional, where I was absolved of all my sins - reconciled to the Father.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus pursued me, searched me out in every sinful situation and state - time after time. He revealed himself to me. He opened my mind to the Scriptures, he set my heart on fire with love for him... time after time.

I found him completely within the Catholic Church, as surely as he dwells in the tabernacles of all the churches in the world - as surely as his Sacred Heart beats in his Body. I found him in the house of my Mother - the Church ... it is like this:

He brought me to the banquet hall

and his glance at me signaled love.

My lover speaks and says to me,

“Arise, my friend, my beautiful one,

and come!"

My lover belongs to me and I to him;

Would that you were a brother to me,

nursed at my mother’s breasts!

If I met you out of doors, I would kiss you ...

and none would despise me.

I would lead you, bring you to my mother’s house,

where you would teach me,

Where I would give you to drink

spiced wine, my pomegranate juice.

His left hand is under my head,

and his right arm embraces me.

Who is this coming up from the desert,

leaning upon her lover?

Beneath the apple tree I awakened you;

there your mother conceived you;

there she who bore you conceived.

Set me as a seal upon your heart,

as a seal upon your arm;

For Love is strong as Death ...

(Sorry, it seems I can only express my 'mystery' in the words of the Song of Songs.)

Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me... - John 6:37

That is why I remain a Catholic ... Because Christ is mine and I am his, inseparably united in time and in eternity, in his body, the Church, in Mary, in the bosom of the Holy Trinity.

The fullness of truth is contained within the Catholic Church... Where the body is ... the eagles gather. To whom else would I go?

4 comments:

Beautiful, Terry. You're in excellent company (St. John of the Cross, for one) in turning to the Song of Songs to express your loving relationship with God. I like the Camaldolese motto: "Ego vobis, vos mihi" ("I am yours, you are mine"). Blessings.

Btw, left Benedict XVI / Ratzinger over Susanna Maiolo affair (not her message, which appalled me, but her plight and her being sent back to it : psychiatry). After hoping the best for "Pope Francis" one year (including hoping Bergoglio = 666 might be like Pius VI or VII = Aquila Rapax) until his "canonisation" of Wojtyla and Roncalli. Briefly consider Alexander IX (Feeneyite), then went to Pope Michael.

So, brief answer would be : apostasising would ruffle as many of my unnegotioables as for instance accepting "Pope Francis" after that "canonisation".

Veritatis Splendor

About Me

... My idea of what I am is falsified by my preoccupation about what I do. And my illusions about myself are bred by contagion from the illusions of other men. We all seek to emulate one anothers imagined greatness....If I do not know who I am, it is because I think I am the sort of person everyone around me wants me to be. I have asked myself whether I wanted to become what everybody else seems to want to become... only to realize that I do not admire what everyone else seems to admire. I have only thus begun to live after all... But it is very late. - Adapted from a quote by Thomas Merton

Holy Face of Jesus

Show us your face and we shall be saved. "Each soul is the object of My special love. That is why I am so grateful to those who are resourceful and bringing back sinners to Me. Keep this in mind then. I gave My life for them in the most atrocious torture, for these poor beloved ones. A humble repentance, and they are already on My heart. So speak gently to them. Speak with tenderness. A brusque remark could drive them farther away." - He and I

Prayer to St. Michael

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.

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